


we're all mad here

by paradoxikay



Category: Homestuck
Genre: ...i GUESS. if that's the tag ao3 wants me to use, Alternate Universe - Mental Institution, Brainbent, Canon-typical language, Gen, Karkat-Typical... Karkat, Mental Health Issues, fistfights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 03:08:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13021977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradoxikay/pseuds/paradoxikay
Summary: Karkat loses his shit (as usual) and finds it again (which is a first).Repost from 2011. Set in theBrainbent universe.





	we're all mad here

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this six years ago and then there was Drama so i took it down but i found it in my email and realized i still like it so here it is again i guess
> 
> I'm not into Homestuck anymore and have no idea if the Brainbent blog is still around anymore or if it died years ago, so... well. This was compliant with Brainbent canon as of 2011. Probably isn’t anymore.
> 
>  **Content warning:** There's a scene where a staff member physically restrains a patient. It’s not excessive or unjustified, but it still sucks to go through that.

Let's cut to the chase, here:

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you are about to perform some truly incredible feats of acrobatics in the process of doing a fucking flawless triple-flip vertical swan-dive off the handle.

And in actual  _news_ , you have no idea why.

* * *

Movie nights are the least intolerable group activity at St. Lobaf, in part because no one takes them seriously. Once a week Nitram grabs a few things from a Redbox on the way to work; he screens for sexual content and drug use and anything remotely interesting, but that doesn't matter when everyone just talks over the movie and throws popcorn (and the occasional Fucking Ugly Stuffed Bee) at the screen during the really stupid parts.

This week's first selection is a particularly insipid love story, so you're taking advantage of the staff supervision to demand use of your iPod. Not that you don't appreciate a good romance, but this one is a giant steaming pile of horse shit masquerading as a movie and insulting the entire genre in the process

(and Egbert's enjoying it  _way_  too much)

and you're not allowed to hide out in your room on movie night, so you've got your headphones on and a bowl of popcorn all to yourself, and instead of staring at the scratched-up postage stamp of a screen you're doing a little people-watching when the people in question aren't looking.

Nepeta's curled up under about five million blankets. She's kneading the couch cushions again, which will never stop being really fucking weird, but it's nothing you haven't seen before. Next.

Ampora's attacking a legal pad with a golf pencil, the wretched lunatic's writing implements of no choice whatsoever. You chuck an unpopped kernel at his head and luxuriate in not being able to hear his bugfuck stupid stammer over your music.

Next to you, Sollux is taking a nap and using the neon demonspawn  _thing_  as a pillow. Yawn. Lalonde's attacki ng Ampora's shitty fanfiction with a red pen, which should earn her some kind of medal for bravery in the face of utter butchery of the English language - mildly interesting, on a scale with "watching paint dry" at the top. Everyone's behaving. Everything's quiet and calm and _therapeutic_.

It makes you want to rip off the top of your skull and beat your brain into vegetable puree out of sheer boredom.

* * *

Dr. Pyrope once asked you to use some sort of idiotic system for ranking your moods by insanity quotient, from sugar-white calm up to chili-red anger. You refused immediately, because first of all you are not five years old, and also all her stupid food metaphors remind you that the outside world has things like real, mouthmelting chili and the only thing in the way is Mister Sweaty McPitreek. But even though you'd never admit it, it sort of stuck.

When Egbert plops down on the couch next to you, overflowing with praise for the bullshit Nitram should apologize for inflicting on the TV, your mood spikes up from irritable habanero. It takes a pit stop in mountain spring clear, first, flooding your head with a second of utter clarity; you take off your headphones, and Sollux stirs from his doped-up coma as you shove them and your iPod into his lap.

Then you hit full-on pepper spray and grab Egbert by the collar, and the only clarity is the words  _shut up shut up shut the fuck up you fucking spout of rancid verbal diarrhea why won't you **shut up**!_ set to the heartbeat pounding in your ears.

Egbert -

Egbert  _giggles_.

"Personal space, Karkat! You're in my -"

"You can shove your precious  _bubble_  so far up your ass you choke on it."

The room isn't so infuriatingly quiet now - but the chaos is just background static. All you can see is Egbert, finally at a loss for words as you shove him off the couch. He hits the floor head-first and crumples into a ball, rag doll limp and finally, fucking  _finally_ , at a loss for words. The part of you that's wanted him to shut up since before he even got here cheers. The other, larger part wants to beat his hideous face into oozing hamburger meat, because you're angry and he's  _there_  and nothing matters more than getting this bone-deep itch out before it tears you apart and sends you home in a million pieces.

"Jesus  _fuck_ , Egbert, are you really that pathetic?" Your own voice sounds distant and unreal, and when your foot connects with his ribs you don't feel anything at all; Karkat Vantas has left the building, and if Jesus is your co-pilot it's some alternate-reality Jesus who preaches  _beat the shit out of thy neighbor, he deserved it_. Everything's a red-hot blur punctuated by another kick to Egbert's ribs, your knees hitting the floor and a solid punch to his jaw, none of it anywhere near satisfying enough -

And then Egbert is about three feet away, your fists are flailing uselessly at thin air, and your feet don't seem to be touching the ground.

"You will  _stop_ ," says the sweaty, douchy reason. You don't stop. You slam your heels into Zahhak's shins instead, reach blindly behind you to smack at his face - he can't hold you up and pin down your hands at the same time, so you use that. Maybe he'll let you go. Maybe (who are you kidding,  _definitely_ ) he won't. It doesn't matter. All that matters is scratching the itch on any surface in reach.

You get a few good kicks in before Zahhak apparently decides he's had enough and shoves you up against the nearest wall. At least you can touch the ground again, but he's got your arms pinned and your face smashed up against someone's shitty coloring pages and just to make your nonstop flight to Hell even better the asshole's wearing steel-toe boots so you can't even stomp on his feet. He's strong enough for five people and gross enough for an entire foot ball team and you hate him so much you could choke on your own furious bile - and he has absolute control over your every move. Of all the indignities St. Lobaf has inflicted on your delicate teenage psyche, this is the worst.

Eventually someone else shows up to manhandle you, and you have more room to move once you're away from the wall, but with a staff member on each arm you can't do much more than flail ineffectively and nearly faceplant when you try to drag your feet. You're not going anywhere they don't want you to go. Now that there's two of them and only one you, you have a one-way ticket to the naughty corner; no refunds, no returns.

"I hope your own putrid intestines climb out through your throat and strangle you in disgust," you yell as they close the seclusion room door, but your only answer is deafening silence.

This is the worst part.

There's no one to fight in here but yourself, and doing that gets you tied up and drugged like a true lu natic. There's no way to scratch the itch that threatens to crawl right through your skin and set you on fire. All you can do is pace, and wait, and hate yourself so hard it's like a sledgehammer to the brain;  _what the hell, past me. What were you thinking? You probably scarred Nepeta for life, way to go -_

But that last part isn't true. It's so  _far_  from the truth that you can't make yourself believe it, and realizing that takes all the wind out of your sails, leaving you stalled in the middle of Lake Well, Fuck with no energy to make it to Island Complete And Utter Self-Loathing. You give up on hating yourself properly and flop down on the bare mattress that takes up half the room, wedging yourself uncomfortably into the corner.

Nepeta'll go blind herself with bright lights or whatever the hell she does when she's upset, and she'll bounce back good as new and full of sympathy. So will everyone else, in their own ways - hell, even Egbert probably won't stay mad.  _You_  didn't, when Sollux -

Beating people up in here is different than it is outside, and not just because there's always someone nearby to keep things from getting out of control. It's different because everyone's fucked up here, in their own special snowflake ways. Freaking out is no big deal when it happens all the time.

"Fuck me," you grumble up at the ceiling, "fuck me with the business end of a rusty chainsaw," but you don't really mean it. You still want to hit something - that's not the kind of thing that just goes away - but you can handle it. You can maybe even  _talk_  about it, with whoever comes to let you out, and with Dr. Pyrope later.

Maybe there's something heavy that needs lifting so you can get replace the itch with sore muscles and a sense of accomplishment. That'd be nice, and you aren't even lying to yourself this time.

* * *

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you think this shithole might actually be good for you.


End file.
